It was a darkened highway that he followed out to the ranch where Becky Friessen lived with her parents. He followed every turn she told him, and they both sat in relative quiet. He still had yet to talk to her about what had happened in his bed, but now was not the time. He was about to walk Becky into her home and face a father who likely would know everything bad about him.

He’d know what he was doing with his daughter. It was just something men knew. He’d made her his, marked her in every way he could, and he wanted her again as he pulled down the driveway, seeing a two-story home with an old fashioned porch and lights on in the windows. He pulled in beside a pickup truck and saw the front door open. A man stepped out, a woman with him.

“Oh, crap,” he heard Becky say under her breath, and he reached over and took her hand.

“It’s okay.”

Her eyes widened as if she couldn’t believe he would say such a thing. Then she made a rude noise as she shook her head and opened her door. Tom stepped out and went around just as Becky closed her door, her backpack in hand. He reached for it and looped it over his shoulder, then took her hand in his, walking with her to the house and over to her parents, who were standing on the porch. He recognized her father, a tall solid man, and though the expression on his face may have been unreadable to some, it was one he knew well.

“We were worried. Why didn’t you answer your phone?” her mom demanded. She was pretty, standing beside Brad Friessen, who looped his arm around her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry. It was turned off. I realized too late, and I just turned it on…”

Her dad held up his hand to stop her even though he hadn’t looked her way. No, his gaze was locked on their joined hands and on Tom, taking in all of him. There it was, the recognition. “Becky, go inside with your mother” was all he said, and Tom could feel the tension ripple through her. She didn’t let go of his hand.

“Dad, seriously, this is ridiculous…”

Then her father gave her all of his attention. It was just a look, but that one look had her wheezing a breath out as she stopped talking. She pulled her hand away and was in front of him. Her eyes were panicked, and she touched the backpack looped over his shoulder. He slipped it off, and she took it. He lifted his hand and touched her cheek, a touch he couldn’t stop himself from. He heard her father clear his throat roughly. He dropped his hand, and Becky walked away into the house with her mother with only one glance back.

Then it was just him and Becky’s father outside in the dark alone. Her father was still on the top step, looking down at him, a position of power, and his hands were slipped inside his jean pockets. However, he did not invite Tom up the steps. He did not invite him to sit on the padded wicker chairs on the porch, which was lit by an outside light.

“I didn’t place the name.” Her father was looking over his head into the distance. Whatever was he thinking?

“Yes, I’m…” he started as her father gave him all his attention.

“Her doctor, the one in the emergency room who stitched up her finger, and you just, what, slept with my daughter?” He sounded reasonable, but Tom was no fool. He could hear how direct and careful he was with the words he was using. An angry father was something many joked about, but being faced with one like Brad was an experience he wouldn’t have been too keen to share.

“Yes, I did,” he said. He’d ordered her to undress and had basically told her he wanted her in his bed whenever he wanted her, only when he wanted her. His terms, always. That was not something he would share with this man. That would likely see him dead. He jammed his hands in his pockets, feeling his cell phone.

“So you’re a doctor, much older than my daughter, who I’m pretty sure you’re aware is…”

“Nineteen, I’m aware.” Maybe it wasn’t smart on his part to interrupt him. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut while this man had his say. Brad Friessen leveled a dark gaze his way, enough so he didn’t need to say the words.

“And you sought her out?”

“Yes,” he said. After running into her at the grocery store, after he’d basically said he wouldn’t date her, have a relationship with her. He was just going to fuck her.

“How old are you?” Still no invite up those steps.

“Twenty-eight.”

What was he thinking? He only nodded, narrowed his gaze as he looked out again at the darkened horizon. It was totally unnerving, and Tom never became rattled. No, he’d learned early on to stay light on his feet, to stay out of the way, to dodge being hit or taken out. The survival instinct in him was well honed. Maybe that was why he was such an asshole. A laughable thought, really, as he stood in the dirt with his hat in hand, so to speak.

“What exactly are your intentions with my daughter?” Brad said. He took a step down from the porch, and Tom had to fight the urge to step back. He took another. He was such a tall man, and Tom stayed where he was as he stood in front of him. Even though Tom was tall, at five eleven, this man had at least three inches on him.

Tom wanted to fuck his daughter.

He wanted her at his beck and call.

He didn’t want to commit to anyone, to give that kind of power to any woman, yet he said none of that. This was not a man to whom he could utter one bit of debauchery and walk out of there in one piece. At the same time, he wondered whether Brad could read any of it in him.

“I’ve never met anyone like her,” he said.

Her father waited. He knew he wanted more. He had no choice but to say more.

“She’s special, and I realized I couldn’t stay away from her. I wanted her in a way I’ve not wanted any woman.” Maybe, he thought, since at first it had been the attraction and something about her that had drawn him like a moth to a flame, and he’d had to reel her in, but at the same time she was reeling him in, just being who she was.

Her father cocked his head, and his eyes turned dark, dangerous.

“You did sleep with my daughter?”

He took a breath. “Yes, I did,” he said, and he’d do it again to have all the sweetness under him, the warmth and connection to someone he couldn’t get out of him. It was as if she were inside him now. He had taken her not just once, and, knowing that her experience may not have been the same as his, he’d had her again before falling asleep. He wanted her still.

He took in her father standing right in front of him, feeling his energy strike out. If he were lighter than he was, he likely would have fallen over. Brad hadn’t looked away from Tom, and the danger that stared him down wasn’t appeased. Instead, everything Brad was asking was only giving him the answers he didn’t want.

“You protect her?” he said.

It was the one question he didn’t want to answer. Tom never had unprotected sex, but the box of condoms in his bedside drawer still contained the thirty it had held before Becky stepped into his bedroom.

He was in some serious deep shit.